Joseph Armone

Joseph "Piney" Armone (13 September 1917-23 February 1992) was an underboss of the Gambino crime family of the American Mafia under John Gotti.

Biography
Joseph Armone was born on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City, New York on 13 September 1917, the younger brother of Stephen Armone. Armone followed his brother into the Gambino crime family, and he became a major earner in the family by the time that Albert Anastasia took power. In 1964, he was shot five times at point blank range in a Manhattan bar, but he survived. In 1965, he was sentenced to 15 years in prison for his role in the French Connection, but he was released after ten years. Paul Castellano had Armone promoted to caporegime, as he was a respected old-timer. In 1985, John Gotti recruited Armone into his conspiracy to kill Castellano, and he was made Gotti's underboss after Frank DeCicco was killed by a car bomb in April 1986. In 1988, he was sentenced to 15 years in prison for a racketeering conspiracy involving extortion, bribery, and illegal interstate travel to commit bribery, and he died in prison in 1992 at the age of 74.